Transcript of Medicaid Abuse Abounds & Spanberger Ally Raided | 5.7.26 New

Vice President J.D. Vance moves to crack down on Medicaid fraud in Ohio after a series of explosive Daily Wire reports.

We had let fraud become so rampant in this country that people were able to get rich by defrauding every single person in this room. Finding fraud in the federal government, it's kind of like fishing in a barrel with dynamite.

I'm Georgia Howe with Daily Wire executive editor John Bickley. It's Thursday, May 7th, and this is Morning Wire. The FBI agents arriving, SWAT teams getting out of their vehicles with weapons.

The FBI raids the offices of a powerful Virginia Democrat behind the controversial redistricting push.

And LIV Golf may be on its last legs. Can the league survive Saudi Arabia pulling its funding?

I do believe that all of the golfers should be playing. The great golfers should be playing against each other. I'm not sure what's happening with Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned, we have the news you need to know.

The state of Colorado is at it again, trying to silence free speech. A law in Colorado forces businesses to use customers' preferred pronouns even if they're biologically inaccurate, and even if using those incorrect pronouns would violate a person's religious beliefs or conscience. That's a violation of free speech, but as Colorado has proven time and again, it has little concern for the First Amendment. Alliance Defending Freedom is challenging the law on behalf of a Christian bookstore and a Colorado-based sports apparel company, but A court recently ruled against them. With ADF's help, they appealed the ruling, and they'll continue fighting to ensure Colorado doesn't get away with this next attempt to skirt the First Amendment. Your gift helps protect free speech in cases like this all over the country. And for a limited time, your first gift to ADF is doubled by a special matching grant while funds last. Text WIRE, W-I-R-E, to 83848, or go to joinadf.com/wire to have your gift doubled.

Vice President J.D. Vance has ordered his new fraud task force to look into claims of sweeping Medicaid abuse in Ohio. This comes in response to a Daily Wire investigative series that's shined an alarming spotlight on the issue.

Joining us now is Daily Wire investigative reporter Luke Rosiak. Luke, thanks for coming on.

Thanks for having me.

Now, you dropped a bombshell investigative report this week, and you've just published a new installment today discussing a case study of one of these fraudsters. First, can you remind listeners about the scam that you discovered?

Yeah. So what we're talking about here is Medicaid waivers that allow people to do things like take care of their own family members on the honor system behind closed doors, and they're billing it to federal taxpayers. All the people, the Republican candidates in the statewide elections this week have commented on the story saying it calls for a crackdown in fraud. And the governor has said that there is no fraud. I disagree. It is policy that you get to get paid to hang out with your family members in Ohio. They call it the personal services waiver to Medicaid. But at the same time, there are also these firms that say they've got a bunch of old ladies that they go and they cook or they clean for. It's essentially unverifiable because you don't really know whether they actually went, or maybe they've got a network of people's Social Security numbers that they're just billing up against and maybe giving kickbacks or things like that. But this is happening at such a great scale. There's these whole buildings full of hundreds of them. One landlord alone owns 7 buildings that have 300 Medicaid companies in them. Just that landlord's tenants billed a quarter billion dollars.

So these companies are super sketchy. You look up the people and they've got criminal records or debts or tax liens, or probably the most common one, they're running other businesses on the side. And so they'll— or maybe this is on the side. And so they're billing like 500 $1,000 a month in some cases to Medicaid, and it's not even their full-time job. So in my view, whether you call it waste or fraud, we probably should stop it.

Now, you said that it was predominantly Somalis that were involved in this. That, of course, echoes what we saw in Minnesota. When you're looking at the rolls, I mean, what percentage, if you can tell by the names, are foreign-born?

I don't know if they're foreign-born. They all— it's 99%+ foreign names. I mean, everyone I spoke to really had an accent, so I'd say they, they actually were all African immigrants. Today I had a case study demonstrating what I mean about when you walk down these hallways and there's hundreds of these weird little offices, you look behind almost any door and you'll find a crazy story. Um, today we've got a couple, a husband and wife, who own this company that billed $1 million. They're both They're not from Somalia, you know, we'll give them that. They're actually from Sierra Leone. But the husband has been convicted of theft and assault and fraud. The wife, similar story, arrested for malicious wounding, all kinds of like theft convictions. Apparently they disclosed all this to Medicaid, so they say. And the husband said, yeah, you know, I was just— I do have a very long record. I was just so dumb. I don't even know what the law is here. You know, apparently criminal records aren't a barrier. It doesn't have to be your full-time job. Another company was registered to the address of the teenage son of a convicted money launderer.

It's madness.

Now, earlier this week, Vice President J.D. Vance actually responded specifically to your investigation, and he announced that he was going to be surging some resources. What did he say he was going to do?

So J.D. Vance actually responded to just the first part of my 5-part series saying these shocking allegations, if true, show why the fraud task force works. Work is so important. I'm directing the task force to look into it and to take immediate action to prosecute any fraudsters involved and to stop all further payments as appropriate. Um, so that's great news, and obviously I think it's more oversight than they saw in, in Minnesota and also more oversight than they saw under Governor DeWine in Ohio. Um, but it is an open question whether you can actually prove fraud against some of these people. JD Vance talked about it's like shooting fish in a barrel. That is true. And I think it's just financially untenable.

All right. Well, Luke, thank you so much for the hard work you're doing. We really appreciate it. And thanks for coming on.

Thank you.

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In a dramatic sequence of events Wednesday, the FBI raided the offices of the lead Democrat in the Virginia State Senate. She was central to the Democrats' controversial redistricting effort and a key ally of Governor Abigail Spanberger.

Joining us now is Katie Pavlich, host of Katie Pavlich Tonight. Katie, great to have you on.

Great to see you. Thanks so much for having me.

So we have a lot going on in Virginia. A massive FBI raid yesterday that really kind of shocked a lot of people, probably has shaken a lot of Democrats in the state. The Senate president pro tempore, Luise Lucas, her office is raided. Apparently several raids went on. What do we know about that situation? Is this surprising?

Well, there were multiple search warrants that were issued by a federal judge to carry out this raid. It was done by the FBI. So this is clearly something that's been in the works for a while now. Democrats, of course, are crying foul, saying that this is political retribution, especially in the wake of Democrats voting in Virginia to take away the representation of basically 90% of the state by allowing, you know, the, the Northern Virginia bureaucrats to control the rest of Virginia. And she was the lead on that. When Abigail Spanberger won the governorship last November, uh, this woman, Louise Lucas, was caught on video talking all about how they were going to change the map from 10 to 1. So that certainly was a talking point yesterday about everything that was happening. But in terms of what the, the probe is about there, the search warrants were about corruption potentially. Her office was next door to a cannabis dispensary, which also has something to do with this situation. So we will certainly learn more, but just based on the way that she's conducted herself in public, I'm not surprised that this is happening.

Yeah, we looked into that, some, and she's, I guess you could say, really outspoken is one way to say it, but very much touting the redistricting effort. She's been very much a key ally of Spanberger, as Georgia said. A lot of attention now nationally on Spanberger. I think the way that she's embraced a lot of the radical left movement in her party has surprised some voters. What are you seeing from your perspective?

Well, going into the governor's election last year and starting the year before, I never bought this idea that Abigail Spanberger was a moderate. She took on this new strategy that Democrats are employing all over the country, which is to say you're a moderate Democrat because that sounds really good, and most of the country can get on board with moderate Democrats if they're actually that way. But then they get into office and they completely change their stripes. Abigail Spanberger immediately got into office and, you know, considered a whole slew of new taxes. A number of taxes she talked about just this week include taxes on gym memberships, taxes on dog walking. And these are not taxes on the rich. These are taxes on everyday Virginians, everyday people. So she campaigned as a moderate despite her record in the House of Representatives being very extreme, including being a big advocate for men and women's sports, for men to use women's restrooms, including in a number of schools in Virginia. Of course, Fairfax County has been ground zero for a lot of the problems with these policies, including rape and assault by men claiming to be women going into school restrooms and invading the space of female students.

So she was never a moderate. She lied to everybody while she was on the campaign trail. She got into office, and now she is changing her position, uh, to the far left. And one of the big things that we saw that she's been touting is, of course, this redistricting, which Ms. Lucas was the advocate for as soon as she got into office.

So as for this trend from moderate to more radical policies, we've just had this gubernatorial debate in California where many of these left-wing policies were on display. Which of the policies that Americans care most about will have the biggest impact come November?

Americans still are very skeptical of Democratic governance. They're still very skeptical of these far-left shifts. They do not want something like in California or New York City, for example, with Mayor Momm Donny to become the mainstream. You are seeing a lot of attention given to these districts where the Democratic Socialists of America, who of course backed the Momm Donny campaign, they win those primaries and they go on to win general elections in these, these blue districts, then forcing the entire Democratic Party to the left. So the Democrats have been completely co-opted. By this movement. That's why you see people like Abigail Spanberger feel completely comfortable with engaging in these policy positions. But broadly speaking, at least we're seeing nationally that the American people are very skeptical of this, especially coming off of 4 years of Joe Biden, who did not govern as a moderate Democrat as he campaigned. He was certainly a far-left president who implemented some of the farthest-left policies we've ever seen in this country. And voters are still very skeptical that Democrats can be in charge of big things like the economy.

And I think you're right. Spanberger and Biden are, are great examples of self-styled moderates coming in and very rapidly going hard left with their policies. Katie, great to have you on.

Great to see you. Thanks so much for having me.

LIV Golf is in limbo. Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund has announced it will pull the plug on the league after the 2026 season.

Joining us now to discuss is Daily Wire reporter Lyndon Blake. So Lyndon, in 2022, LIV burst on the scene and a lot of people were concerned that it was going to actually kill off the PGA. They had unlimited money to lure away talent, but now it seems like the tables have turned. So what's happening with LIV Golf?

Yeah, I guess the money is only as good for as long as it's coming in, because that's what's really happened right now, was you had that public investment fund out of Saudi Arabia saying, hey, we're no longer supporting this after this season. So what's really going on is this once, like, cool, modern, 54-hole, team-based golf league is looking for a completely new business structure. They're looking for new investors. They're looking for how to keep this thing going once the 2026 season ends. So this is going to be a full scale back as the CEO Scott O'Neil tries to continue this league, and he's staying positive about it, I might add. He spoke Tuesday at Trump International in DC and he put a positive spin on everything. He was saying he is meant for a moment like this, even under this uncertainty of where the funds are going to be from, trying to keep the focus on the players as well. But this is looking grim for LIV Golf because they're dealing with no funding. There's no captain. There's no fan base to really absorb the financial and reputational weight that the league is now dragging on through the 2026 campaign.

Also this week, LIV's big star Bryson DeChambeau has been outspoken about his future. He actually has a contract that expires at the end of this season. He's been on multiple programs throughout the week entertaining a potential return to the PGA Tour, but now he was involved in a lawsuit with the PGA Tour with some other players a couple years back, so he's saying that they may not welcome back with open arms. And his response to, well, what if LIV does fail? He says he's going to focus on growing his YouTube channel. You know, he's been involved with President Trump and YouTube videos and his granddaughter even joining President Trump in the White House for a lot of their health initiatives. So that's just an interesting response from a pro golfer that, yeah, we're going to focus on growing my online platform.

Now, you mentioned President Trump. Has he weighed in on the LIV Golf versus PGA dispute?

Yeah, he told outlets that he anticipates a lot of the LIV golfers to return to the PGA, but it may not be as clear-cut as that. A lot of these LIV players are locked into contracts like Jon Rahm. But he does say that he knows the CEO Scott O'Neil and the other people involved in LIV have a lot of hard work to do to secure the funding that they know they're not going to have next year.

Now, you mentioned reputational damage. Did a lot of these players burn bridges when they left to go to LIV, or is that going to be something forgivable for them?

Yeah, I mean, this was a soap opera in the golf world. It was all the biggest names— Dustin Johnson, Brooks Koepka, who's now back with the PGA, Phil Mickelson. I mentioned Bryson. You had all these players jump ship, and you had Rory McIlroy, our back-to-back Masters champion, holding down the fort in the PGA and trying to be the guy that's like, no, we're gonna do this the right way, we're not going to take all this money from Saudi Arabia. So it's one of those things that's been joked about on an international scale. You had LIV Golf being poked at in Happy Gilmore 2 last year with Adam Sandler. So it will be interesting to see how the PGA welcomes him back. Bryson DeChambeau did say he would love to play in any tournament that he's welcomed back to.

Last question, any tournaments upcoming?

Yeah, there's actually one in DC this weekend. The Live Golf Virginia tees off today, and that'll last through the next several days. That's their final U.S. stop before they head over to Korea. The one big glooming spot on the schedule was a scheduled tournament in New Orleans set for June. That's been postponed.

All right, well, as a brand new fledgling golfer, this is something interesting I'll keep track of. Lyndon, thanks for reporting.

Thanks.

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